Note: This is a seattlepi.com reader blog. It is not written or edited by the P-I. The authors are solely responsible for content. E-mail us at newmedia@seattlepi.com if you consider a post inappropriate.

America’s Ten Best Beer Towns: The Non-Fiction List

As part of a research project, back in December, I started compiling a list of the nation’s beer meccas; those areas where a beer aficionado can go and taste to his/her geeky little heart’s desire and know that almost every stop will be filled with wonders.

So, after making my own preliminary notes, I googled “Ten Best American Beer Cities” – and two variations thereof – and started to read.

For the first minute or so, I was puzzled. Then baffled. Then appalled. Just for an example, GQ gave the title of America’s best city to Los Angeles, a city that sports no real nationally-prominent breweries (with apologies to everyone who brews there) but has a fair number of mid-tier, fledgling, or sometimes downright mediocre producers. Travel + Leisure at least came up with a plausible Numero Uno, Portland, Oregon, but ranked what is pretty much inarguably the nation’s best single metro area, San Diego, as eighteenth, behind the likes of Savannah, Austin, Charleston, South Carolina(!)(?), and Anchorage! I read a total of 23 lists, including one in which the author names a tiny, ramshackle brewpub in rural Montana in his top five and left off Portland and San Diego altogether.

I was stunned. These websites were all large, reputable, well-funded businesses which could have easily assigned any passing beer geek to amass such a list. Instead, when I started to check around, I found that the first ten lists were by:

2 freelance assignment writers, neither of whom had any background at all in beer journalism.

NONE of the people who authored these lists were any more than semi-casual beer fans. None had written extensively about beer at all, except for one guy who had written a detailed exploration of funky brewpubs in which fighting or arm-wrestling were the main events, for which the production of beer served as a slightly-exotic adjunct.

I searched twenty-six pages deep into google and found NO lists written by anyone professing to be an avid beer freak. I don’t blame the people who wrote these tragically misguided/uninformed lists. They’re just writers trying to patch together an income in a hideously difficult profession. I DO blame their editors, to whom credibility and any hint of acumen clearly meant nothing – beer as a page-filler along the lines of padding out short columns with “Fun Facts and Anecdotes”.

The list of these cities actually isn’t all that hard to compile. Any semi-studious American craft-beer fan could have done it but, obviously, none were contacted. There will be debate, of course; there always is, no matter how definitive a list may seem. But what’s below represents a FAR more plausible picture of the nation’s brewing hot spots than anything on those 26 google pages.

The criteria are simple: the largest clusters of A) total breweries and B) outstanding, nationally-recognized breweries. No fluff about civic amenities, nearby tourist attractions, or restaurants and spas. This list is about BEER, period – where to find it, how many, and how good. Is it subjective? Yes, in the same sense that any list of anything that’s not complied by ALL the interested parties in the particular genre is going to be subjective. But I believe that this list is going to pass muster with most hard-core craft beer fans and that the Honorable Mention cities are mortal locks to realize their potential. So, without further ado…

AMERICA’S REAL TOP TEN BREWING CITIES

Number One: San Diego, California

AleSmith Gang

With superstars like AleSmith, Green Flash, Coronado, Port, Lost Abbey, Alpine, Stone, Societe, Ballast Point, Iron Fist, Mike Hess Brewing, the remarkable and venerable Karl Strauss Brewing, and the emerging AutomaticBrewingCo., and Rip Current, it’s inarguable that SDCA has more sheer brilliance per square mile than any other American city. Hosting Stone, Port/Lost Abbey, Alpine, and AleSmith alone would have made the SD area Top Dawg but both the numbers and quality seal the deal. According to the state of CA, the metro area surrounding SD currently has 39 pending brewery licenses. Obviously, quality breeds quality and the future for this SoCal vacation paradise is so bright they have to brew wearing shades. San Diego is simply the best brewing city in America.

Number Two: Portland, Oregon

Diversity: that’s PDX’s main virtue; as wide-open a beer scene as you’ll find anywhere on the planet makes The Rose City an even better choice for a brewing destination than San Diego, if your goal is to explore all corners of the American beer envelope and take repeated walks on The Wild Side. Cascade Brewhouse, the sublime Upright Brewing, the granddaddy of all America’s eccentric, “Outside the Box” brewers, the amazing Hair Of The Dog, the botanical wizardry of Breakside Brewing, the Gluten-Free ingenuity of James Neumiester’s Harvester Brewing, the delightfully unfettered The Commons, and the sheer powerhouse virtuosity of the new Gigantic Brewing, coexist beautifully with stalwarts like Alameda, Old Lompoc, Hopworks Urban Brewery, Laurelwood Brewing, Amnesia, Burnside, Coalition, and satellite bastions of powerhouses Rogue and Deschutes to form a tightly-woven tapestry unmatched anywhere in the world.

Number Three: Seattle, Washington

Reuben's Brews

When it comes to tweaking, rethinking, modifying, and improving the more-established styles of ales, Seattle’s rapidly-expanding legion of brewers has no equal. Seattle is best described as the soggy, northern version of San Diego, a scene primarily built on playing the Greatest Hits – Pales, Ambers, ESBs, Stouts, Porters, IPAs, and what constitutes America’s Core Beers – gilded with rich veins of delightful experimentation. Seattle’s army of breweries has been slow to get into the practice of bottling and widely distributing their beers. Until five years ago, in fact, only Pike, Elysian, Snoqualmie Falls, Red Hook, Pyramid, and Maritime Pacific packaged anything at all. This reticence wasn’t caused by isolation: the breweries simply sold everything they brewed locally. Now, with bottling and canning on the rise, people everywhere are able to sample Schooner Exact, Emerald City Beer Co., Fremont, Two Beers, the dazzling Airways Brewing, Sound Brewing, Trade Route, Harmon, Big Al and other packagers, the Seattle area is drawing in tourists who explore the tap-only glories of Mac & Jack’s, Georgetown, Wingman, Powerhouse, Brickyard, Dirty Bucket, Twelve Bar, Naked City, NW Peaks, Black Raven, and the extraordinary new Reuben’s Brews. And they’re liking what they taste. The quality standard here is incredibly high and the brewing community is as tightly-knit as any in the US.

Number Four: Denver-Boulder, Colorado

River North Taproom

For purposes of clarity – since they are two distinct localities – we separated out Denver-Boulder from Longmont-Fort Collins-Loveland. If we had combined the two, the resulting brewing mega-plex would have been Number Three but even on its own merits, Denver-Boulder is just barely edged out by Seattle’s bedrock brilliance. Also for clarity, we could easily flip-flop Denver at four and Longmont+ at 7, but for the inclusion of Boulder into the Denver metro. Avery, Boulder Beer, Upslope, Twisted Pine, and Mountain Sun, along with Denver’s own towering Great Divide, simply add up to more quality focus than do the Longmont+ majors. But then add in the amazing, emergent Palace of Sour/Brett, Crooked Stave, the funky elegance of Renegade, the sheer artistry of the year-old River North, the blue-collar panache of Wit’s End, the startling suburban brilliance of Dry Dock, the schizo grandeur of Copper Kettle, the endearing eccentricity of Strange Brewing, and what may well be America’s best brewpub and restaurant, the transcendent Bull & Bush, and what you have is an entire emergent scene that’s just starting to blossom and is nearly as wildly diverse as Portland.

Number Five: Grand Rapids/Kalamazoo, Michigan

Bell's Taproom/Pub

There is just no arguing with what’s gushing out of GR/K these days. This small area of a state better known for cars and college football is killin’ it in craft brewing. Founders, Bell’s, Arcadia, Dark Horse, Brewery Vivant, Hop Cat, and New Holland in one place is about as potent a fifty square miles as you’ll find anywhere outside of San Diego or Portland. According to the local lore, Founders and Bell’s, the area’s two giants, both had fairly rocky starts before their undeniable quality started to win over the state’s legions of BudMillerCoorsPabst die-hards. Today, these two and the others in this dynamic community are icons of Michigan pride and among the most universally-respected American craft brewers. Grand Rapids/Kalamazoo may not have the vacation-spot allure of San Diego or Portland or Seattle but the chance to sample breweries like these in such a small geographic frame is going to be near-impossible for any real craft-beer aficionado to resist.

Number Six: San Francisco, California

The immortal Anchor…uh, anchors this developing brewing culture, along with Marin Brewing (which spawned the sensational Moylan’s), setting a standard that’s more than upheld by stalwarts Speakeasy, 21st Amendment, Drake’s, Black Diamond, and Social Kitchen and Brewery. A dozen more are on the rise and new licenses are being filed at a rate of four to six a month. The SF metro has a very credible claim as the birthplace of American craft brewing, with Jack McAuliffe’s seminal New Albion Brewing opening in Sonoma in 1976. It may be that the proximity of Napa and Sonoma’s world-class wine culture preoccupied Californians for so long and so completely that brewing was seen as something of an afterthought. But whatever late start SF may have gotten, they’re certainly brewin’ up a storm now.

Number Seven: Longmont-Fort Collins-Loveland, Colorado

New Belgium

Just say the names: New Belgium…Left Hand…Oskar Blues…Funkwerks…Odell…Coopersmith…and the up-and-coming brilliance of the stupid-great Grimm Brothers, Equinox, Loveland Aleworks, and uber-funky Black Bottle. This idyllic chunk of Colorado’s high plains, about forty miles due north of Denver, is as hot a hotbed as you’ll find in the US. What’s so compelling about the whole area is the obvious willingness of the locals to go just as far outside the box as the brewer’s imagination can take them. Coloradans are the folks, after all, who first accepted and went nuts for canned craft beers, are now slurping up everything produced by the stunningly creative weirdness of Crooked Stave and Funkwerks, and first accepted and encouraged the headlong hop madness of Great Divide. This is as wide-open and fertile a beer scene as any in the US and Longmont-Fort Collins-Loveland may well emerge as the overall epicenter of Colorado brewing.

Number Eight: Bend, Oregon

Crux Fermentation Project

In exactly NONE of the two dozen lists I read on google did the name “Bend” show up. BIG mistake. Here’s a town of 80,000, sitting all alone in the middle of Oregon’s High Desert, with no major college or national business headquarters except Country Financial, no major sports teams, and a downtown the size of a phone booth, and you’d think Nothin’ is Happenin’ In Bend, except for some pretty fancy skiing up there on Mount Bachelor. And you’d be WRONG, so totally freakin’ wrong. If there were no other beermakers in Bend, Deschutes Brewery, arguably one of America’s Top Five producers, would be reason enough to make Bend a destination. But then add in the fabulous 10 Barrel, the superb but under-the-radar Bend Brewing, the quirky, uniformly-excellent Silver Moon, the edgy and totally phenomenal Boneyard, former Deschutes brewer Paul Arney’s mysterious, stunning Ale Apothecary, neighborhood fave GoodLife, tiny Below Grade, and what I think is destined to become America’s next iconic brewery, Larry Sidor’s Crux Fermentation Project, and you have Bend – a national-class beer destination and one of the country’s hottest emerging craft beer cultures. The new, much-ballyhooed Worthy Brewing is just opening this February and at least five others are planned for ’13. Stay Tuned…

Number Nine: Boston, Massachusetts

Jack’s Abby, Clown Shoes, Somerville, Pretty Things, Cambridge, Mystic, The Tap, Ipswich, Cape Ann…if you’re a craft beer fan and you don’t know these names, you should. Though the Greater Boss-town brewing scene stands firmly in the gigantic shadow of Boston Beer Company’s Samuel Adams and the live-wire dynamism of Jim Koch (he said, tongue lodged in cheek), Boston’s brewing community is among the most eclectic and creative in the country, as well as one of the fastest-growing in the East. Anything goes here, just as in Colorado, and New Englanders not only drink it up but they talk it up, too. Anyone who thinks NE chippiness is the sole province of Red Sox and Pats fans need only talk with a Mass Brew Freak for thirty seconds to catch the radar waves of regional pride. Good on ’em. There’s a lot to celebrate in Bean Town.

Number Ten: Chicago, Illinois

Even five years ago, when you were talking Chicago craft brewing, you were talking about Goose Island. That was pretty much it in terms of anything known outside of IL/WI/IN. Today, the Broad Shoulders are littered with emerging breweries that are taking on the steep learning curve that faces any new brewery and scaling it like scalded cats. Revolution, Half Acre, Piece, Pipeworks, Hopothesis, Finch’s, and the stunning Local Option now force GI to share tap-space in the city’s thousands of bars and taverns. Goose Island’s sale to The Great Satan seems not to have had the stifling effect on their quality that it’s had on partners like Red Hook, so they’re still very much worth your $$$, while dozens of yet-to-come brewers wait in the wings. Chi-Town isn’t quite there yet but, at this rate, they’ll be there momentarily.

HONORABLE MENTION/EMERGING

Asheville, North Carolina

This tiny city was tragically saddled with the single worst trick Fate could have handed them: they were named Beer Town USA” in a completely suspect “poll” in the shadowy examiner.com. Simply put, it laid a silly and needless burden on what is a really fine, growing brewing community. Expectations were raised to a ridiculous level, when the truth is that, out of the nine total breweries in Asheville, seven are sorta solid and only two are really accomplishing in any major way: Highlands and French Broad. Asheville, if it keeps growing and supporting this very healthy scene, will become a serious contender for any Best Of list in maybe as little as eight – ten years. But, if you go there, have realistic expectations. It’s not happenin’ quite yet.

Vermont

Hill Farmstead Brewing

Yep, the entire state. With fewer than 40 working breweries (many more planned), it’s quite possible to visit every notable brewery in one weekend or, if you’re very motivated, in one day. (Vermont isn’t all that big). Swing by the superb, eccentric The Alchemist, the casually-expert Lawson’s Finest Liquids, the divine (if a tad prissy) Hill Farmstead, and the virtually unknown Trapp Family and you’ve done it. Throw in a remarkably low percentage of crappy breweries (really only one, which sadly happens to be the largest), a wonderful, laid-back, slow-paced atmosphere, and friendly natives and you’ve got the seed bed of a truly remarkable brewing community. Like Asheville, they’re just not, by any objective standard, quite there yet but the amazing growth of truly unique and accomplished producers cements the fact that Vermont will get to greatness, sooner rather than later.

A Brief Word on Responding to The Pour Fool: A while ago, I posted a piece called “The Splendid Isolation of Washington Brewing“. It got, to put it mildly, a LOT of response. Sadly, a great deal of the response was from people who wanted to reinterpret what I wrote to suit themselves and then respond as though I had actually said it. I eventually closed the responses when the irrational stuff got too extreme. This blog is written for people who are interested in reading and thinking about what they read. It is NOT written for the trash-talkers, skimmers, or the people who think everything in life can and should be expressed in a form that would fit in a Twitter post. I’ve kept the responses active because that’s what the P-I has provided and I like to honor that. But if you respond to this blog, PLEASE: stay on the subject of the current piece, think before posting, be civil (“You suck!” is a valid sentiment but send it via the email link, please), and DO NOT try to make me responsible for anything other than what I actually said. Your interpretation is your business but I’m not wasting what’s left of my days on the planet responding to things I never said and don’t mean. I’ve been inclined for years now to simply disable all posts but I haven’t. And won’t, as long as the discussions are even semi-rational. Thanks!

Note: This is a seattlepi.com reader blog. It is not written or edited by the P-I. The authors are solely responsible for content. E-mail us at newmedia@seattlepi.com if you consider a post inappropriate.